Importunate, ruthless sound of the alarm clock is wiping me out from the abyss of my sleep. Complicated world of dreams bursts suddenly like a soap bubble leaving the temporary emptiness after itself, which is being filled up quickly with the reality.

Glance at the screen of the alarm clock. The blurred image is slowly being arranged in the line of digits: 2:15. It is the highest time for standing up if I want to catch the sunrise in the Kampinoski National Park.

I go to the window. The sky is cloudless, so there is a great chance that meadows in the Park will be covered with creeping mists – the most favorite subject of my photographic passion.

I drink a few swallows of the hot tea, I dress myself and I go outside. The air is cold and humid, there are a lot of stars visible. I reach the car after a few minutes walk. I get in to it and after a short while I am on my way for the morning meeting with nature.

The road to the destination passes quite fast. I park and close the car. I take my rucksack with me, I place one of my cameras on the tripod and I enter between the trees sparsely scattered over the lost in the morning mist meadow. A few steps ahead and I find myself in the world, which realism is more similar to the pictures created by the dreams than daily reality.

It starts dawning slowly… and here the adventure begins. :-)

The moments, in which the magic light of the rising sun changes places ordinary during the day into fairylands are the most valuable for me as the landscape photographer.

Soft, colorful, often very much dispersed light of dawn, helps to present the beauty of landscapes on slides in definitely more artistic way, in comparison with the severe, flat light of midday.

Still, in my opinion landscape photography isn't however unceasing pursuit for the interesting light only. Deep insight in the area of composition rules such as The Rule of Thirds or The Golden Ratio is also indispensable. Nevertheless I am not saying that you have to stick to these rules only in order to take great shots. No, you must learn them also to feel the moment in which they must be broken to obtain fabulous effect. Ability to break the rules consciously is a great asset, I think.

The next thing is that sometimes, interesting theme, great light and thought composition are not enough to say that this is an evergreen photo. It is only a good one. Something is missing, something very illusive, a kind of added value, a deeper meaning between the elements placed in the foreground and the background, for example.

This brings us to probably the most important issue. A great picture is like a good book, there is no memorable, inspiring photo without the story behind the scene it presents . If you do not have anything to tell as an author through your pictures, don’t count that they will be truly appreciated by the demanding viewers.

But how to do that, how to include the story in the photo? How to tell others about our feelings, which we were experiencing in that single moment when we decided to release the shutter? How to include the inforamation why we made it? How to include all this stuff with the use of a few elements only placed in the 2 dimensional limited space? There is no one, simple answer for that issues... That is the biggest secret of the greatest photographers...:-).

Before the end of this story let me tell you a few worlds about my approach to the equipment. I must point out that it is not a part of the main stream of my photographic interests. Cameras, lenses, slides are just the tools only. Thanks to them I can share my vision of the world that surround us. In my opinion the equipment can not disturb in taking photographs, i.e. among others it must be strongly built, resistant to adverse weather conditions, the camera must be equipped with a big, bright viewfinder and reliable light metering system.

I take my shots exclusively on slides. I think that slides, still offer the unique quality of colors reproduction, which in case of landscape photography is truly valuable asset.

As photographers you won't escape from the issues connected with the equipment that is obvious. Still do not concentrate on it too much, please. Concentrate your efforts on taking great shots instead.

If you have any comments, questions, here is my email: piotr[remove]@pyzik.strefa.pl

Regards, Piotr Pyziolek (Pyzik)